Deep Boring in Prussia

Boring algae

and an increased chlorophyll b to chlorophyll a ratio for better light capture in low light. Furthermore, an Ostreobium strain living in a coral skeleton, where nearly all of the red light has been captured by the zooxanthellae in the coral tissue, has been shown to have modified chlorophyll with a spectrum shifted towards far-red wavelengths. As zooxanthellae cannot use far-red light, more of ...

Why Mathematics is Boring

Storytellers have many strategies for luring in their audience and keeping them interested. These include standardized narrative structures, vivid characters, breaking down long stories into episodes, and subtle methods of reminding the readers of facts they may have forgotten. The typical style of writing mathematics systematically avoids these strategies, since the explicit goal is “proving a...

Nothing Boring About Boron.

The trace mineral boron is a micronutrient with diverse and vitally important roles in metabolism that render it necessary for plant, animal, and human health, and as recent research suggests, possibly for the evolution of life on Earth. As the current article shows, boron has been proven to be an important trace mineral because it (1) is essential for the growth and maintenance of bone; (2) gr...

The Laspeyres-Paradox: Tax Overshifting in Nineteenth Century Prussia

126 words) Following the seminal work of late nineteenth century economist Etienne Laspeyres we analyse the incidence of the Prussian milling and slaughter tax shortly before its repeal in 1875. A comparison of flour prices in cities which levied this tax with cities that did not reveals unusually strong tax overshifting. Modern theories explain overshifting of a specific tax with quality impro...

Sodomy in enlightenment Prussia: from execution to suicide.